In situ conservation of javan mountain forest tree species in Babakan Pari Biodiversity Park, Sukabumi, West Java

Abstract

Gunawan H, Sugiarti. 2015. In situ conservation of javan mountain forest tree species in Babakan Pari Biodiversity Park, Sukabumi, West Java. Pros Sem Nas Masy Biodiv Indon 1: 1364-1369. Conservation practices for indigenous and endangered tree species in Indonesia are still rare. The government's efforts remain largely confined to national parks and botanical gardens and these are few in number. For this reason, the creation of a biodiversity park by the private sector, with the purpose of ex situ conservation of indigenous flora threatened by extinction, is a beneficial development for the future. The establishment of biodiversity parks aims to increase biological diversity through the ex situ management of particular indigenous trees threatened with extinction. Parameters used for measuring the biological diversity (in a defined area) are the number of tree species, a diversity index, and a species index. Results obtained from our study in 2015, revealed that the Babakan Pari Biodiversity Park in West Java had assembled 107 tree species, 38 of which are naturally distributed in mountain forests of Sukabumi District, such as: Agathis borneensis L., Altingia excelsa Noronha, Cinnamomum verum J.Presl., Lithocarpus javensis Bl., Mangletia glauca Bl., Dracontomelon dao (Blanco) Merril & Rolfe dan Schima wallichii (DC.) Korth. In general, the Babakan Pari Biodiversity Park has succeeded in increasing floral diversity in the locality. In Zone 1 of the park, there was an increase in species number from 18 (in 2010) to 77 in (2014), in the number of trees from 89 to 1423, in the diversity index from 1.69 to 4.14 and in species index from 0.59 to 0.95. In Zone II, there was also an increase in species number from 8 (in 2010) to 48 (in 2015), in the number of trees from 28 to 763, in species index from 1.81 to 3.42 and in species index from 0.87 to 0.88.